Re-embodying the Sacred Wild through Goddess-centered Polytheism, Social Justice, and Grief Work
Those who have been sent to the shadows
who exist unseen yet reviled:
retreat beneath the ground
Move under their world
with stealth and secrecy.
Take your sustenance
Grasp it by the roots,
in the darkness
from which it grows.
Create paths through
the underworld;
build caverns underground.
When it is time to rise,
push mountains
through the soil –
Shake the surface
Destabilize their world
Plant gardens in the freshly churned earth.
A valentine poem for you, for the earth. Perhaps especially for those who are in solitude this Valentine’s Day. Jai Maa ❤
Here the earth curves in welcome
meeting my back with the sure comfort
of a wizened love.
I lean into the embrace,
inclined to believe
this is meant to be.
I rest against stones in their fullness, round
rising from the ground
warmth penetrating my cold, jagged edges
soothing, subduing
as I sink into the flow
that caressed their shape
into form.
Here so held solitude
becomes expansive.
My awareness slides
into the ever flowing river
surely as the salmon
in rushing depths.
This as simple and precious as breath
Here a truth:
You are not loved.
You are love.
You are not on this earth.
You are of this earth.
You can not be separate from who you are
and even the strongest of forms
will change with the flow of time.
Bow to the wood pile
Flesh of this great earth,
Home to many:
you have carried water in your cells,
your breath allowing me to breathe
now your body offers me warmth
Gratitude to you for this offering.
Bow to the wood pile
I carry your bones in my arms
One, two, a bundle cradled
hand supporting the edge against my breast.
Bow to the fire
wood, hollow against stone,
chiming this altar to life
Bone to flesh
flesh to spark
spark to flame
of this one brightness.
Water hisses, rising from flesh
as smoke, greets the space
Is it returning to its source?
I step beyond these walls
Smoke escapes, the night
pervading, still
Rising toward the stars
I pour,
water into the darkness.
A prayer I wrote to Hekate in 2009, which has popped up again through social media so I am sharing it with you here.
My relationship with Hekate has shifted in recent years, as relationships tend to do. She was my first – the first deity that I felt a true kinship with, the first deity that I made a dedication to. I joke that we are old friends, content in our relationship, sometimes not speaking for lengths of time but knowing the other is always present.
This is partially a result of growth in my practice, as contradictory as some people may find that. As my polytheism grows in complexity and nuance, and as my work in Tantra and my relationship with Kali Maa deepens, duality starts to blur and the lines between “hard” and “soft” no longer seem as fixed.
Hekate Soteira, the World Soul, is the one who truly started me down the path I am on, or perhaps She is the one I first recognized as calling to me in recognition of my path. As such our connection will never be taken for granted. Io Hekate!
Soul of the World
Ancient One,
You who were created from darkness,
born from the womb of nothingness
Hekate, Mostly Lovely One,
to You I pray.
Guardian of Crossroads
You who sees what came before, what is, and what lies ahead
Propolos, guide me on my path.
Keeper of the Keys
Protectress of the ancient wisdom
I pray to thee, as your daughter
Most Magnificent Goddess
Phosporous One, bare your torch for me.
Through you, I face my fears
Guiding me into ever greater depths,
until you stand with me at the final mystery.
Hekate Soteira
Goddess, Savior
It is in honor of you that I pray.
written by Syren Nagakyrie
Please do not share or reproduce without credit
Samhaintide 2009
It happens
every now and then
just four words
My sister is dead
Grief comes with a
great sucking sound
a black hole that pulls
on all that I have held dear
on all that I have lost
It hungers for
the stars of love
and memory,
encroaches upon their light
But oh, my sweet
darkness you are the light
Do not hunger for
there can not be emptiness
where such power is born.
When the seed falls from the tree, it appears
to spin wildly, to float lazily
It is doing exactly what it is meant to do
On its way to meet the earth
and take root.
The seed creates a vortex,
held aloft by its own design
it’s own power.
It’s fall is a magical act
It’s descent a journey, blessed
Ancestor to ancestor.
Shared as it was inspired in me, and with the awareness that as “seeds” those of us of European descent in America are rooting into colonized land.
May the waves of our grief
and the fires of our open hearts
rise and flow to remind us all
of the power that we contain.
Our bones are made of mountains
Our tears made of stars
With the contraction and expansion of every heart beat
Our bodies call to the grief and ecstasy of life
May we remember
in honor of all those who are forgotten
May we remember
in honor of the blood in the soil
and the beings that have been lost.
I actually wrote that over a week ago, before I really heard about the murder of Alton Sterling, followed by the murder of Philando Castile, and a number of other deaths of POC in the last few days that happen everyday.
It came after a night of devotion to Kali. It came after having another layer of maya ripped from my sight. I’ve been struggling to reorient myself since then, and have realized that nothing has felt stable in longer than I can remember.
Three weeks ago I wrote “I don’t know what’s next. We’ll see what the coming weeks and months bring, even if I am afraid to look.”
I keep diving into the current, hoping to pull out something profound and meaningful, something that will inspire to empowerment and action. But I gotta be honest: right now I’m not finding anything other than the ominous. And as I watch the protests surge across the country, fear and grief flowing through the people, I can’t help but feel that this is not the end.
Are you feeling it too? That sense of something being ripped open, of something below the surface that feels too dark, too deep?
Do you feel the resistance, like a rip tide?
O Maa
Dancing through our hearts
Shattering our illusions
You, Creator and Destroyer
All encompassing Time
Nothing escapes the wisdom of your blade
Sever us from our demons
Teach us to drink deep
of the ecstasy of life
O Maa
Praise be to you,
Most Fierce and Loving One.
Jai Kali Maa!
Poem and Photo by Syren Nagakyrie
It feels like pooled velvet
the grains so fine,
they seem to disappear as I grasp them.
They defy their mass
This, your Mass
my Sacred Rite
Kali of the cremation grounds, whose ashes heralded Her coming
Your blessing of a sharp blade and fierce love
Is this your boon received?
The color of it surprises me
For a moment
it is only the sand of a beach
and then a chip of bone sifts to the surface
Maybe, it is only a shell.
The wind shifts, a wave splashes
Ash kisses my face.
Sure as had been Her blade,
the moment strikes upon me
an initiation greater than any.
Love and grief and soul align
dissolving into one,
as ash dissolves into the sea.
At a loss for words
the pen trembles the point
carving lines of vacant thought on paper.
Vacant like the eyes in the faces I see
Names carved on paper
Say her name –
It rises from the tongue on wings
With a scream,
Beating against what condemned her
Air is pushed from the room
And the abyss rushes in
Claiming the eyes, the faces, the names
Until everything is eyes and faces and names
Unrestrained
The room trembles with truth
And the walls shudder with grief
An earthquake of voices
Magnitudes too great to withhold
Behold
Justice has come.
Call of the Syren 