Women's Mysteries - Women In Divinity

WOMEN IN DIVINITY

WOMEN'S MYSTERIES - Women In Divinity

Walking Blankets and Talking Sticks

by Barbara Butler

We have squatted by many rivers, washed many bowls - bowls of wood, bowls of clay, bowls of stone, bowls of shell, bowls of bone, we have carved, lovingly, the Mother with our hands swirling it round and round with the water sound.

We have made many circles worked many fabrics together, cleaned many hides together, shuttled many looms together, strung many beads together, pulled many feathers together, painted many colors together, told many stories together. Our tongues and laughter licked our work like the small flames of the fire we sat around round and round the fire sounds ...

We have worn many shawls draped over our shoulders, our backs, our breasts - shawls of many colors from the river to carry water, from the trees to carry wood, shawls veiled us as we walked behind a body, shawls sheltered our growing bellies, shawls covered our colored bruises, shawls waving and flapping as we danced and sang like birds, shawls draped heavy while we marched like cold dogs, shawls slung tight our babies to us, shawls wrapped gently about a fevered friend. The shawl drank our sweat, our tears, our runny noses, hid many secrets - heard best our heart sounds, felt first the many faces of the wind, round and round the wind sound ...

We have told many stories - as many as grains of sand and blades of grass and fish who swim and insects who swarm and birds who fly and rain drops that fall and waves that pound round and round the earth sound ...

Our stories vibrate out to the stars and come back to our ears as echoes, to our hearts as memory, to our cells as our SELVES. Our stories were our first prayers. We are all the stories we have ever heard, all the stories we ever thought, all the stories yet to be created.

All stories come from our sense of separateness. All stories try to express our hearts’ longing to BE ONE again. All stories are the language of being human... until we can be humans BEING. Most stories explain, justify, or teach, however, some stories are created only to share and these stories are HERstories: my story - your story- our story.

It is good to explore our separateness. it is good to celebrate our separateness. It is good to honor our separateness. For the strong circle is formed by separate parts, being separate and one simultaneously. We bring our separate stories - our stories of separateness - to the circle, each a bead in a beautiful necklace we will all wear.

So we draw our shawls like mist - water, like night - air, like smoke - fire, like a blanket of snow or pine needles - earth, soft and insulating around us so that we may use our own body heat to heal. The shawl is our protection while we walk through Great Mystery. our stories are our raven wings as we fly through Great Mystery. In Great Mystery we find the self. We cannot return to the One until this done... so we tell our stories wrapped in our shawls, in our walking blankets, holding our talking sticks.