(In my little cauldron: Burning Artemisia Californica I harvested in late Spring)
When you’re in the cauldron of transformation, pieces of old self break into the liquidity that boils and simmers you in it. You’re not the old form. You’re not quite the new one yet. Your life is a soup. You are melting. You are molting. You are shedding and shifting, stirring and mixing, disintegrating and unmaking.
There are times in our lives when the undoing and rebuilding of who we are is in small bits. You bite into it, chew well, and swallow. You digest. You are nourished. And you metabolize your life in a way that keeps things stable enough as they change.
There are periods when all together we enter the chaos of the collective cauldron. We’re being cooked in the merciless fires that deconstruct old codes and agreements, things we thought were basic and foundational, and forge a foul reality that centers toxicity, tyranny, and Trump like tendrils. Not pretty. Not fun. Not exciting. But the sparks within it can become the revitalizing force that will forge us forward when it’s time to rise from the ashes.
The alchemy of the personal and the transformation of the collective intertwine. Directly and indirectly. In obvious ways and in subtle sentiments.
Sometimes you call on the waves of wild waters to carry you into the sea of change. And sometimes you turn your back on the ocean, and a current comes and gets you unexpectedly, pulling you into the depths.
Right now, I am taking a moment to write to you from behind a pile of boxes. Yesterday I packed my little work nook in our bedroom. Old artwork and birthday cards the kids made for me - some from when they were really little, others from more recent years. Notebooks filled with notes from years of attending lectures. Piles of papers and many notebooks full of notes and plans for workshops and ceremonies and classes I led. Beautiful stones and shells collected on infinite walks on the beach. Little notes of affirmation scattered on my messy desk. Notebooks full of plans and different visions, versions, and variations of my work.
I found boxes full of photocopies of plays from my past life of studying theatre and acting. When we moved into this house, I was far from that lifetime, but couldn’t say goodbye to it yet. I kept it. But going through it now, ten years and nine months later, I have zero connection to it. Piles of paper. I want to ceremonialize it, to make a fire, to burn those old papers and parts, to nourish the soil for my soul’s new pathways with ashes, but I’m letting go of so many things. Including this idea. There’s too much to do. And I don’t want to take this weight with me into the new home. The ceremony is in the simple act of putting it in the recycling bin.
Tucked in a box I found headshots and other professional photos. Double faceplant - it seems so ridiculous from the vantage point of this moment in life. That serious look. That glamour shot. That sexy smile. So funny! And tears too. For the cheeks I used to think were too chubby, but now seem to so plump and toned in those old photos. For the eyes that carried a spark I don’t see when I look in the mirror now. And that body I used to focus so much on its flaws, always feeling that it wasn’t skinny enough, with that smoothness and firmness I had no idea it had. I now know that in twenty years, when I look at a photo from this moment, I’ll miss how I look now.
So I’m breathing with the attempt to bring love to who I am at this moment. And love that young girl that I was, who I always felt she wasn’t good enough.
I found so many notebooks and papers full of dreams and ideas. I am packing delights and disappointments into boxes. I am recycling broken pieces and unmet expectations. What am I taking with me? What am I leaving behind?
This moment is a bridge. It’s an ocean. It’s a leaf. Growing. Falling. Composting. Cooking. Deep breaths to be with it all. Here in the cauldron of alchemical songs. Lyrics of love and lament and laughter. Words of wild wonders and wandering wheels of life.
The dark season stirs in it the call to the cauldron of regeneration. There’s breaking and releasing, untethering and dreaming. Screaming. Singing. Sifting through and simmering. Inspiration is spangled over dark December skies. Stirring the cauldron is Cerridwen; Celtic goddess of alchemy and regeneration, of death and re-emergence, of release and rebirth, of disappointment and fury and reformation.
You may feel deep wisdom woven into this season. Or maybe it’s a wildness you’re reading in the air. There’s magic to the end of a collective cycle. The spooky threads of Samhain spin the world toward Solstice. Darkness is never void of fear and grief and loneliness. But you can feel the shift from scary to dazzling. When it’s so dark so early, and the city lights up with twinkles, you may hear a soft whisper, calling you to slip into sparkles. The shimmering, glowing world is breathing you awake. Within.
This is Cerridwen; goddess of moon and magic. She is the spirit of Awen; a Celtic Welsh word most commonly translated as “divine inspiration.” She is the fierce energy that sweeps through the end of something. She is the ferocious, devouring night that swallows you whole. She is the fire that burns under the cauldron that cooks your old form. She is the spark of rebirth that sparkles in the horizon when the sun sets on an era. Cerridwen is the song of rebirth that flickers at the bottom of the pit of discontent. Something new will move through. The fire that propels it forward into becoming can feel too hot. And the season can burn too cold.
Decisions about new directions are made in the cauldron when we’re able to take into consideration as many components and ingredients as we can recognize within the brew. What you’re taking with you into the next phase needs the wisdom of what you’ve composted in the previous one.
It’s not comfortable. It’s not always gonna lead directly to a better place. Sometimes I’m surprised by how life can linger in years - sometimes a decade or more - of unbecoming. Years of molting and trying again and again to become the next phase.
But I’m also surprised by how beautiful the journey of undressing in the arms of the night can be. How delicate and dangerous the process is. How exhilarating and enchanting and liberating this shedding and unraveling can be.
The myth of Cerridwen is one that reminds you of how transformation doesn’t serve your expectation, but rather unfurls your existence with unexpected nuance. I wrote this essay about Cerridewen, if you want to dive into the archetype of transformation with her. There’s bits of the story woven in. The next essay in that series will go live later this week. If I have a moment between boxes, I’ll write to you here to let you know it’s up. Otherwise I’ll link it in next Monday’s Muse Medicine.
You can also partake in this first somatic spell in a series of five, invoking and inviting Cerridwen’s cauldron of transformation into your life through your body and breath. I’ll release one a week, which will take us into January. All of them filmed here, in the living room of this home - a sanctuary that will be broken down in the next few days. It will be reborn with inspired renewal in the space we’re moving into.
I’m calling on patience! Cerridwen stirs the cauldron (with the help of two others) for a year and a day. Goddess help me with my patience! I can feel it. I am Impatient. How I want the new home to be beautiful already! Organized already! How I want all the pieces to come together full of pleasance and poetic appearance.
Patience.
It’s in this house that we’re closing the chapter on, I have had to come to terms with how impatient I am. These have been the years of waiting. Years of raising littles, and having to cultivate patience for them. Years of not yet becoming. Not yet re-emerging. This has been a decade plus of chrysalis.
Fucking patience.
I’m not patient. But I have more practice than I did when those headshots were taken. Or when many of the ideas in those papers I spent yesterday sifting through were written. Not patient. But practiced in cultivating patience.
Prompts:
What are you waiting for?
What has been stalling this year?
What have you spent months, years, or decades in the process of crafting?
Where do you need to cultivate more patience?
What do you need to stir?
Where do you need the fire to burn hotter, for your own limitations to melt in the cauldron?
Who are you cooking in your brew?
These prompts are here to spark your inspiration, to light a fire of creativity in your process of working on your own life. Your art emerges from your experience. Your art emerges from your imagination. Let these prompts pulse you into a poem, into a painting, into a conversation with a lover. Let these prompts invoke Cerridwen. Let them generate your Awen. You can make a meal inspired by these questions, or choreograph a dance, write a song, or tell a story. Wherever Muse goes, follow her lead. These prompts are here for you to lure her in. You are not tied to them. Let the process breathe.
I have not had many people leave comments with their creative spark on display, and I totally get it. But I won’t stop inviting you to share what your Muse weaves through you. Our inspiration and creativity are so important! Especially now when the world as we know it collapses. Especially now when cruelty is on display. Especially now when fear and fury run so strongly in our blood. Especially now when it feels like the arts are going through such metamorphosis with AI, and with so many people facing basic survival needs unmet.
We need you! We need your Awen. We need your inner sanctuary of inspiration to be fed, nourished, worshipped, awakened, alive. Your art matters, dear soul! Whatever form it takes.
Thank you for reading, beautiful being! I’m so grateful that you’re here, that we’re in this cauldron together. Thank you!
If you find this inspiring, or this message awakens your awen, please share it with others, will you? Others would benefit from it, and it would be an act of tremendous support in my work and would mean the world to me!
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With so much love,
Hagar
❤️🔥