The women are gathering.

Stretching our hands across a hot and war-torn world, bringing our spindle whorls, crochet hooks, backstrap looms, quilt frames, knitting needles, and the umbilical thread of time. We are stitching a new reality into being, knotting the broken cords until they are strong and supple once more, mending the fabric of earthly existence with our love, craft, and art. 

The women are cooking.

Pounding corn, wheat, yams, and teff, combing rice and amaranth from their stalks in season, kissing our tomato plants, caressing the rich black soil until it stains our fingernails, romancing the roses and singing to the salvias, feeding children, elders, and agents of change. We are nourishing the benevolent revolution.

The women are wild.

Saving kittens, adopting dogs and building coops for chickens, raising money for the wolves and bears, making safe gardens for possums and spiders, keeping bees and brewing nectar for hummingbirds, planting for the pollinators and leaving out milk for the serpents. We care for our animal kindred with earnest natural grace and millennia of care. At a soul level we know, they rescued and domesticated us.

The women are rising.

Gazing at the stars, whispering truths by candlelight, shuffling our cards, rattling our bones, lifting our breasts to the sun and our mirrors to the moon, we echo the voices of our ancestors and descendants, joining them in the seamless eternal chorus of being and becoming. We are the oracles of the ancient future.

The dead are speaking.

Through heliacal strands our grandcestresses send messages of comfort, encouragement, warning, and wisdom. We’ve seen this before, they say. You will be all right, they say.  Be strong, it always gets better, they say. A little more butter, they say. We smell their rose and violet perfume, hear their voices whispering in the wind, see a flash of movement out the corner of the eye. We tie prayers to trees, toss wreaths into rivers, and wrap railroad ties in red ribbon. We remember. They fold their invisible arms around us and we pull our shawls closer at the sudden chill.

The Priestesses are dancing.

Swaying and spiralling, twirling our hair and swirling our hips, shaking the mountains of our breasts, quaking in the valleys between our thighs, erupting in laughter, pleasure, and wordless deep sighs, storming in the silences. We are awakening the Goddess that already lives within each breast. Through us, she gives birth to herself in our world.

The Priestesses are praying.

Bringing scraps of paper to burn in the cosmic cauldron, our handfuls of incense and juniper, the flames of our yearning, the aqua vitae of our blood and tears, the breath of our incantations. We encircle and enchant the planet, strewing the ashes of our letting go, scattering the seeds of intention, dreaming something better into being. We are alchemists committed to perfecting The Great Work.

Soteira is emerging, the sun shining forth from behind the clouds.

She is heart, hope, and healing.
She is the wordless knowing, the sighs of women’s relief, the laughter of babies, the promise of the future, and the love of the world.
She is you.
She is us.