The Crone and the Resting Maiden.
I can feel the first stirrings of her buried beneath the dirt. Her fingers start to twitch as her eyes shift under heavy lids.
She can hear the crone whisper words of wisdom to her in this darkened period, and the maiden knows she will have her time to frolic once more.
But for now, she lies cradled and nurtured in the warmth of her mother. Long hair and bare skin, her breath in tune with the soil that encompasses her fragile body. The darkness is her place of escape, her place to find rest before the sun begins to shine more steadily over the horizon and she is once more dancing in the field with flowers in her hair.
Days spent in nature with her warrior, making love in the dirt under a canopy of trees.
She rests with full certainty that her foolishness will once again return to life and embodied passion will surface once more. But for now, the crone is still spoon-feeding her the knowledge she will need for her time ahead. Some animals fatten up before hibernation, but the crone keeps the maiden well-fed in the darkness so that she has more energy to roam free in the light.
Every few hours, the old wizened woman hobbles over to rest on a dampened log that sits by a crackling fire illuminating the night. She offers gifts to the stars above, and the moon herself answers her deepest questions with guidance meant specifically for her. She smiles with gratitude for the confirmation she needs, and steadily makes her way back to the burial place of the maiden.
The maiden senses the crone’s movements and gestures, but it feels more like a lucid dream than her reality. She is content to rest for now. Her deep slumber allows for her youth to take a break- for someone to step in and care for her. Sometimes she finds herself wrestling with her desire to run about again and her need to stay warm and in hiding.
The night before the first snowfall, the maiden strips bare and bathes herself under moonlight before making her way to her bedding of soil, leaves, and pine. The crone wraps a blanket made of wolf’s fur around the maiden’s back as she snuggles in with her primordial mother.
She closes her eyes gently and begins to feel the first snowflake hit her cheek, and before she knows it, the world around her crystallizes to form her own cocoon. She lies nestled in with the barren earth, and dreams of the eastern sunlight drenching her skin once more while the crone spends the shortened daylight hours absorbing the vibration from the old oak.
She takes to lengthened evenings for tending the hearth, and though she knows that she knows nothing, she is open and willing to learn everything. And so she creates recipes with the stories she collects, and finds a suitable elixir to create with letters forming words to feed her sleeping maiden.
The crone knows she only has a few months before the eastern sunlight returns, and so she tends to her work with due diligence.
This goes on for some months, and before they both know it, the cocoon begins to melt away and the first stirrings of spring begin finding life once more.
The soil will begin to shift and move, and just like the first shoots of flowers, the maiden’s fingertips will emerge once more.
But for now, the crone sits rooted in her rightful place, tending to the fire that helps her see in the darkness.
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Natalie Sophia is a self-proclaimed writer, healer, yogini. Her mission in life is to heal and be healed. She loves to laugh, to feel and to write. She began her journey of awakening a few years ago, and though there are times she longs to go ‘back to sleep’, she knows she has work to do. Her work and her passion are one and the same, and she hopes to inspire others on their life path to attend to their deepest longings as a soul in a human body. Natalie feels that life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured. She knows that pain can be inevitable, but there is always choice in the story created from that pain. Feel free to check out more from Natalie on Facebook or on her website.
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