I’m trying to keep this short and sweet. But lo and behold, you know my tendency leans towards long and deep. And often a little dark.

It’s a section I’m working on from A Long Quiet Ride.

Something I was going through then.

The motivation for that journey. Kinda like the cattle prod or kick in the butt that drove me down the road.

I didn’t really understand this then.

It’s hard to have clarity when we’re fully fixated on just trying to stay afloat.

It takes time, safety and love to look back and figure thing out.

And then… write about them.

Alas today in the still dark morning at the kitchen table by candle light, the pen poured red across the journal page.

A few thoughts emerged from that mess. Bare with me as I untangle the fragile, sticky thread.

I’m at that threshold, facing transformation.

It is the day that breaks me down. One of them. There are a few.

Tomorrow I will mop up the pieces. I get a lot of practice with that part, too.

In the meanwhile, I’m standing there, vulnerable, exposed, naked if you will. Torn open from the soul.

Wondering how many more layers of the onion must I peel. What else can I release? What else will I lose?

I want someone to peel the skin from my snake, crack the shell open and let my chick emerge. But we both know part of the process is painful.

If every day we die, some days more than others, than every day we can be reborn.

Birth isn’t easy. It’s messy, you know.

Transformation can be painful.

Leap, the story goes.

The first step I took toward facing who I was becoming, was almost my last.

Like Alice, I fell, and fell, and fell.

Finally finding myself on solid ground. Barefoot I stepped onto a frigid deck in a tenebrous storm.

The only light was something still within me, scarcely flickering.

And then the wind stirred the spark, barely bringing it to flame.

And slowly, something within me raged. Transformation ignited.

Rising, somewhat slow and feeble. Nothing powerful and profound like the Phoenix I would have liked to be.

More like a delicate butterfly recently emerged from the sticky cocoon

Slowly unfurling damp delicate wings

Waiting for first light

To see what the net she wove, her chrysalis, did.

The birth of the Crone.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin