Cailleach, Crone, Companion.

She’s deep dreaming, wise, grounded, determined, content in herself and what she knows and believes. Not disappearing as Brigid appears at Imbolc, but staying to work with her. Abso-bloody-lutely GLORIOUS.

I’d want to be her. I am almost her.

My otherworld, the place I see when I journey, has changed from mediterranean to nordic. Or at least British. I no longer dream of escape to sunny climates, because I belong here. I want to be here. Rocky, stormy hillsides. Gales. Dark skies. It’s probably raining. That’s how my bones feel and I kinda love it.

As I finally move from the vestiges of “we can manifest a perfect future where everything is just lovely”, to whole-heartedly embracing the full spectrum of Life, then judgments such as “good vs bad” and “dark vs light” are out. Enriched, full vision; awareness and acceptance (not the same as settling) are in.

Fortuitously, this expansion has readied me for current times. Now I see the fascists and the oligarchs and the bullies for what they are. My rose-tinted specs are long gone. Now I see how I’ve been how I am manipulated by them. How my attention is hypnotised, then sold to the highest bidder with a chunk of the proceeds going into the pockets of those who have power but should not have. They are here. They are not going anywhere. Some humans are like this and worse. I am making moves to extricate myself from relationship with them as much as I can without going full Luddite. (The Luddites had a point though.)

There have been some false starts. Tumblr, anyone? Wince. I’m as yet undecided about Substack; there are worrisome mutterings even if Hamish et al aren’t funding the Tangerine Terror. I have a back-up plan I’m learning how to use. I like it. Facebook is gone. Gmail and Google search have gone. Chrome has gone. Amazon is still in play but no longer as my first choice. Nor second, nor third. Instagram will be next (please let Flashes be a real thing). No doubt I’ll remain in a state of flux around all this techno stuff and so much is unavoidable, but I am quite determined. I’m trying to be graceful and sensible about it.1

The overall theme, as I slowly move into 2025, is fine-tuning; focus; concentration of effort.

In September I wrote about the big vision I had as I came to the end of my time with Deb Matlock, working for a Wild Rhythms Nature Connection practitioner certificate. With her help I had clarified, explored, journeyed, dreamed big, created and bloody hell…actually stuck with it.

Then life took us on a detour. In late December, a few days before Christmas, my husband realised that the “indigestion” he was feeling was actually a recurrence of the angina he’d had in the spring, which ended up with him having a stent fitted in May. We went down to the emergency department at lunchtime and he went through a few tests and a lot of waiting, to be told at midnight that while I could go home, he could not. Nine long days in hospital later, he had another serious angina episode - or maybe an actual heart attack, we’re still not sure - and was blue-lighted to another hospital for triple by-pass surgery. There were complications and he overcame them. Back home on January 8th, he was and sometimes still is fragile, shaken and in great discomfort. Needing to just rest, rest, rest. Meanwhile, my daughter and I had spent Christmas in bed with the virus that so many have had. I saw it described as “covid-adjacent” and that feels correct. It took me all of January to get over it, not helped by what was happening to Charlie. Now here we are. I’m well and he will be, albeit looking at a lengthy period of rehab and the kind of anxiety that comes with losing your trust in your own body.

My, our, timeline has shifted along with everything else. Jumping straight in with my Big Vision no longer feels appropriate. I am not that person. So, I asked myself, “What do I need in order to move forward?” and the answer came fast and clear: to rebuild and rediscover my relationship with, and place in, the natural world to which I belong. It’s foundational. Simple. Square One. Essential. Those were the words. The somatic knowing came as the sensation of lying on soft ground, amongst moss and fallen leaves, and simply dissolving back into the earth for a while. Back into Earth for a re-set, having been separated from her emotionally and spiritually for a while. This is what I - and I believe many of us - need. Maybe especially the older women who have been told they’re now “pointless” but know they have stepped into an energy they’re not sure how to use. We need that energy more than ever if we’re to resist the extreme patriarchal fuckery heading our way.

My thoughts, beliefs and long term plans remain the same but it feels as if I’m narrowing the beam of a torch. From wide and diffuse, to a laser. In time that will relax and reverse but for now my circles of both influence and concern have become almost dots. From lighthouse to candle. This time it’s personal.

So what I offer here now is that sharing of what my Square One looks like and how I’m living it. To me, 2025 feels like a year of building foundations. Stripping back excess and getting clear. I have to stop thinking, “But I’m 61…I don’t have time for yet another year of prep!” Because this isn’t prep, this is the work, focused.

If you’re also looking to create new foundations then I’m here as a companion and helper. I specialise in working with the life energy of this planet that flows through all of us and connects us. We all do, because it’s everywhere.

I’m here for all of it. Out in the sun and down in the deep dark. We start by knowing our Universal Self is animal, natural, spiritual, perfectly flawed and already whole.

Back in my otherworld I’m standing on rock, with a cold wind blowing through a dark sky full with grey, churning clouds. It’s challenging, uncomfortable and at times, even painful. But the beauty…oh, the beauty of it takes my breath. Then gives it back to fill my lungs. This is my crone calling. My devotion to the Cailleach embodied and devoured.