High Tea, Holy Communion
I have been drawn to prayer upon waking from dreams of old worlds. The Empress grows bountiful harvests with her fingertips and restores prairies to a plentiful green. As I pray, I am awakened in the underpinnings of curiosity. Through a connecting gaze into black pools. Through an invocation of wonder. As Goddess receives me, I am shown for the first time, the truest expansiveness of sky.
The Earth below my feet is greener from when this sky fell. The Goddess is present. Summoned by restoring waters that brought softness to a rigid, abrasive Earth. She has ended the draught. Rushing floods travel through new channels. I see her womb has broken open and from my own, poetry rises upwards. Both eruptions beginning in a fluttering or a fire.
As I leave the black pools of perception, I see manifestations of the Goddess in my sisters. Proof of her visitation in their songs, art works, or even just their stance. And this, reader, is the Goddess speaking through me. My gift is transmutation by way of word. There are love letters to no one in-particular on the altar. A show of my devotion to love’s great theory and poetic justice. Brought on by a whisper that only I can hear and a grip of the heartstrings that only I can feel. Today the whisper is a commanding voice, and the devotion brewing in this body holds no ties to man. I can feel the heartbeat of Terra Gaia. It feels like tender winds and looks like the mass blooming of wild sunflowers.
This conjuration penetrates deeper than skin. I travel to a shrine outside of town in an alcove of red clay rock. Inside it are candles, statues and other offerings. Goddess and God are in balance within this tiny world. They are represented equally. The entrance of the shrine is marked by one word: Mercy. With me, I brought a bundle of lavender that was dried last year. I tied it with a golden ribbon that was soaked in Queen of Angels oil. In this moment, I feel as though I am laying the dead to rest, and hearkening the first breaths of the newly born. The shrine is haunted. I invoke Flora Sacra, I praise the Goddess, I ask for balance beyond the shrine. Respects are paid and protections are cast. Suddenly, above me, appears a cloud of white feathers. Spirits awaiting the blending of the worlds.
The essence of time is met with the alchemy of divine choice. Sustenance once forged from a closed fist now blooms from an open hand. I read that Wormwood is the name of an angel, and with this, I knew my prayers for balance had been heard. And so I dressed for Spring in the first bodily chills of Autumn. I took holy communion in the form of high tea.
The seasons are gateways of desire and divine invitation. I remain connected through all phases and use what is present. I draw from a shifting well. Harvest season’s essence, when used as candle dressings will bring dreams of riches. It is a state of corporeal splendor. So vivid, warm in color, and savory to the taste. Pentacles, gold pieces in cloth bags, the abundance of gourds. With spark of fire, I asked the late summer bearing of fruit to reveal itself through my flesh. I was then guided: every pore of my body absorbs what it is soaked in. I bathed in rose water sun tea, and that is what I became. I was overtaken by final forms of desert roses. I grew to cover fields and to be harvested. To be inhaled and tasted. I was a symphony of velvet petals. I was tan but still cool. A mauve wash over alabaster. A painting of two souls becoming one. Once infused fully, my breasts excreted golden honey, and with this, I fed the world.
I am dressing for the job that I want - I am adorned and wrapped in silks. Billowing, breathtaking, and barefooted. My footsteps upon our Mother Earth convey ancient symbolism. They sing of times when woman was revered for her relationship with the unseen. They re-enact the first unfurling of ferns. My hands upon her soil enact the first mudra. They come together in prayer to enact the second. The new world draws one to prayer. Today, I am the Empress and I have grown bountiful harvests with my fingertips. I have restored the prairies to a plentiful green. I have brought softness to a rigid, abrasive Earth. I have ended the draught.
