The Croning

When It's Your Time, You Know.

Photo by Craig Manners on Unsplash

She cut off the radio as the news came on. Yellow leaves swirled by her window, fading to brown like forgotten photographs. She felt the change of weather in her hands for the first time this fall, though she was well into middle age. The wind howled. She shuddered as if someone were walking on her grave. She put on a sweater and started water heating for tea.

Outside, the trees writhed against the keening wind like women fighting storm troopers who tore at their clothes. The wind screamed, prophesying a winter to try men’s souls, making them kill their neighbors for bread. She watched, shivering, as the wind scoured away the last shreds from the naked trees. It howled, ravenous.

Winter always came, but it had never felt like this. She thought of her grandmother who used to massage her hands when the wind blew. An image of Grandmother's face appeared in her mind, a serious expression on the face etched with lines of laughter.

It is my turn. Do I remember what to do?

She made ready, pouring boiling water over ginseng and ginger in her teapot. She put an afghan and a change of clothing in the dryer to warm.

She cast a circle around her altar. She lit a candle for her protection. She called the spirits of each corner to accompany her on this first attempt. She burned sage from her garden on the charcoal block, breathing in the cleansing smoke to clear her mind of her own fears. She mixed salt and water in her earthen chalice and tasted a sip to take in each element: earth and air, fire and water. She prayed to accept the task, to do the work.

She cleared her mind and waited for the transformation. It came quickly. She felt her knuckles gnarl, her hair wither to stringy gray strands, her body desiccate into leather and bone. Did dying feel like this, being dried like a bundle of sage and sweet grass?

She leaned on her altar to steady herself on her feet. No one could have prepared her for her first time as the Channel. She blessed herself three times, put on her heaviest coat, and went out to stand in her back yard to face the elements alone. She squat and cast the circle again, rubbing cornmeal and tobacco into the grass around her.

Winter’s wind pulled her hair and chilled her blood. She took off her shoes and stood barefoot against the dead grass. She imagined herself to be one of the trees, feeling roots grow from her bare feet, digging into the earth. Raising her hands to the sky, she moved like the trees, resisting the assaults of the wind, its curses and slurs. She opened her throat and sang, voicing the sound from the earth to the space beyond the sky.

She reached out with her mind to draw the fears to her: the incisions of doubt, the paper cuts of anxiety, the mind-severing panic, the scrapes and scratches of terror twice told, the gouge of the veiled suggestion. She pulled the gibbering fears through her heart and into the earth below her, like a rod grounding lightning safely into the earth, where they would become life energy.

Fear flowed through her body like summer sap into her roots, into the earth. She trembled at the depth of it, at the pain, like a hundred fiery wounds draining her body. She held on to consciousness only because she knew must. Each fear pierced her soul, freezing her blood, drawing the very life from her body, until she collapsed on the wet soil. She let the fear bleed her dry until numbness told her it was gone.

When the ground beneath her began to feel warm, she knew the magic was complete. She crept to her knees. She wished she had brought a stick to help her stand up. She had not yet made her crone’s staff. She smiled grimly, gritting her teeth. She pushed herself off the ground then stepped into her shoes. The wind calmed to silence.

This winter might be cold, but her people-- her neighborhood, her little sector of the world--would come through it without succumbing to the dark days ahead. Mother Earth would transform the freezing fear into warming love.

Inside, her tea waited to warm her. She changed into warm clothes in the kitchen and carried her tea to the living room to snuggle under the afghan, sleep, and be renewed. As she sipped her tea, she felt the liquid soak into her body, restoring it to her former shape. She knew now what age and death would bring. She would never fear them again.

The phone rang. Sighing, she got up to answer it.

"Thank you, dear," the voice said from a place where no telephone wires or satellites could reach. "We needed you this year, and you did well."

"Thank you, Grandmother"