feminism

Storm of 1000 Nights: Nightmares and Divination from a Rose-Crowned Prophetess.

 

Welcome to the storm, Witch a disembodied whisper says, waking me from an uneasy slumber. Take up your roots and move to higher ground. Strap your babies to your back and head for the mountains. Be the Huntress now, lest ye be hunted, and bid your lover leave the bedroom and wander with you.

I leave the dark warmth of my nest to press my shaking palm to the window pane, praying the prophecy of my nightmares be false, but the stark white shape of the Storm Moon rises against a violent night. The holy demoness spoke truth. It begins now, the long night’s labor of a new world, and I soften my gaze to scry the future in the wild wind.

The gathering storm shows me revolution and dissent. I see bombs, butchery, and blood. I see heavy crowns falling and white lilies bleeding, and I see the many standing against the few. I hear chants of solidarity and blessed battle hymns. I see guns in pieces on the ground, and I know the reckoning comes.

I swallow my last sweet drop of hope that I could possibly see this through to the end, that I would survive the most traumatic birth the world has ever known, and I beckon the prophetess to speak to me again.

Who are you? I demand aloud, and my lover stirs in our bed but does not wake. Why should I obey a creature who cowers in the invisible ether?

I hear nothing but the whistling wind and the squeal of my home’s old wood of bowing to the wicked will of the elements.

Answer me! I whisper, pounding my fist on the window with such force a fracture spider-webs across the glass, fragmenting my reflection into a dozen pieces. The image of my own eyes multiplied into an insect-like monster distracts me so much I nearly do not see Her there, but the moon casts a diamond-milk spotlight on the rain-soaked silver of her hair; now I cannot look away.

Who are you? I whisper to the woman standing in the distance, so far from me I cannot make out her age or the color of her skin. She wears a crooked ring of pink roses on her head and her once-white dress is covered in stains. Why are you showing me these terrible things?

Her answer echoes from within, rattling my bones as if she were trapped within my ribcage, shaking the curved bars, and howling through the hollow of my throat. I show you only what you must know she hisses through my lips. Could you see the truth of it all, could you feel the real weight of what comes and the worth of what the wild ones will do, it would crush you like a million-tonne meteor.

Protect what is yours now, not out of fear but out of duty. This is a labor of 1000 nights; when it is finished, this world will be the rotting corpse stinking of old corruption and outmoded systems. When it is finished, the cosmic shift will have begun, and the newborn, soulfully raw community will be wailing for nourishment.

She shows me a majestic global order standing for the first time and walking on wobbly legs. She shows me concrete governments cracked wide open, the golden doors of corporations ripped from their hinges, and covens brewing elixirs for the ailing Earth. She shows me mass rescues of veiled and voiceless child brides and soldiers whose hands are too small to grip the machete.

She shows me a worldwide storm, and she names women the ambassadors of holy disruption. She shows me tribes of righteous feminine agents wearing bloody flower crowns and showing their aching parts to each other. She shows me women demanding to be heard and waving weapons of shed antlers and pens dipped in the blackest ink.

She shows me vindication for the Wounded Feminine trapped within texts called too sacred to burn, and she shows me holy hellfire tearing through nooses and setting the wild forever free.

She shows me clear water and open borders, and she shows me the pink glow of compassion pulsing in a steady drumbeat from the very heart of the planet.

She shows me the storm’s blessed aftermath, a space cleared for pan-gender equality, and I see the truth of her prophecy in the maternal moonlight.

I nod in sullen acceptance, pressing forehead to splintered glass, and the prophetess dissolves into a relentless torrent of wind and rain. The moon disappears behind thick clouds shaped like dragons, and I too begin to breathe fire. A flash of shock-white electricity illuminates my resolve, and I affirm aloud that I am ready.

This Witch is ready for you, Storm of the Ages. I am ready to be hurled and tossed by those who think they know better than me. I am ready to be brought to my knees by my own discontent, and I am ready to protest with all the wrath I have in store. I am ready to rally and rage. I am ready to get my hair wet and hands dirty. Let the lightning strike me in just the right place so I shine like a billion-watt bulb.

I am ready to call forth our daughters and call out their attackers. I am ready to rake my claws across the wood-paneled walls of grand rooms where the fate of our bodies is decided, and I am ready to die doing it. I am not leaving, rose-crowned Prophet, but you knew that.

I am staying right here in the thick of it, and I will still be here when the clouds part, when the soft glow of dawn sheds a promising light on the storm’s beauteous destruction, when all that is left in my fields is Kali’s bloody blade and my own rain-soaked corpse.

Blessed be the coming storm.

***

{Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest}

 

Comments

Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky

Danielle Dulsky is a heathen visionary, Aquarian mischief-maker, and word-witch. Author of 'Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer’s Epic Journey of Becoming', 'The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman' and 'Woman Most Wild' (New World Library 2020, 2018, 2017), Danielle teaches internationally and has facilitated embodiment trainings, wild circles, communal spell-work, and seasonal rituals since 2007. She is the founder of The Hag School and the lead teacher for the school’s Flame-Tender Facilitator Training and online coven, The Hag Ways Collective, an E-RYT 500 and YACEP, a Fire-Keeper for Ord Brighideach, and a dedicant to Irish-Celtic spirituality. She believes in the power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning witches, and rebellious artists as well as the importance of ancestral healing, embodiment, and animism in fracturing the longstanding systems supporting environmental unconsciousness and social injustice. Parent to two beloved wildings and partner to a potter, Danielle fills her world with nature, family, art-making, poetry, and intentional awe.
Danielle Dulsky