A year of letting go

“The freedom we seek does not lie in the patriarchal control we so desperately attempt to maintain. Rather it lies in letting go and descending into the chaos of the maternal matrix where the seeds of new life are waiting to be fertilized.” ~Marion Woodman & Elinor Dickson

Crone by Val Trullinger

I am home for the holidays, in the small city on the East Coast of Canada where I grew up, currently buried under what seems like several feet of snow. Two storms have transformed this old familiar place into a winter wonderland – beautiful, majestic.

Intending on leaving early this morning, we are now in a holding pattern, waiting for the storm to pass before driving back to Toronto. As it stands, I’m not sure we would make it out of the driveway, let alone the sixteen-hour drive back home, reminding me that all things beautiful can be dangerous too.

The snow has covered the East Coast like a thick, white blanket, the Wise Woman’s shawl, instructing us to be patient, tuck in, stay warm, stay inside.

And so we wait.

On Friday, we drove two hours to a rural town where my childhood friend is living. It felt good to spend the afternoon of the Full Snow Moon with her, talking about our mutual journeys – the journey that so many women are taking at this time. We are searching, and in that search we are making different choices about work, relationships, spirituality, home. We are letting go of the way things used to be, had to be, in order to see what could be.

This space of change reminds me of the Moon – her cycles and continual change, the value of being patient, and listening for the whispered wisdom beneath the louder chatter of the ego telling us to maintain the status quo no matter what. But that is not the only way to survive.

Heading into the New Year, I reflect on the thirteen moons of 2012 – each one revealing new truths, offering symbolic deaths and rebirths, and providing teachings in the process of change and the act of surrender.

Just as 2012 was a memorable year astrologically, it was my year too – a year of awakened consciousness, a year of endings, a year of new beginnings. Maneuvering the unpredictability of changes in identity and career became the new order. The only thing for me to do was let go.

“Letting go is embracing the Black Goddess, she who will open our eyes to our illusions, she who will make us see that our treasure lies in the repressed feminine energies that we once labeled weak, irrational, disorganized, supersensitive, and all the other thoughtless labels – naïve, stupid, slow, melodramatic. Descending into her territory demands the death of a rigidly controlled life. Dancing with her means finding a new discipline that allows the new life to sprout and grow.” ~Marion Woodman & Elinor Dickson

As the Snow Moon passes I am still home – the home of my ancestors, the place where my history began. Just when I was scheduled to leave this place, she keeps me one more day. The Dark Goddess has business with me still.

Today is not a day for travel. This year was not a year for striving.

The calendar I followed these thirteen moons did not contain the hour-by-hour time slots that once determined my daily activities, comings and goings. My calendar was cyclical, renewing, healing.

Three deer passed in front of our car on the night of the Full Moon, their silent journey graceful, unflinching, unconcerned by our headlights or the threat of death. They passed through the moon-lit street and onto snow-filled lawns, continuing their journey like gentle thieves in the night. As they disappeared into the surrounding forest, I recalled how such sightings made me feel as a child – that the world was magical and that anything was possible.

And it still is.