by Jacqueline Sheridan

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I am a healer
And I am wounded

Wounded by a patriarchal construct
A disembodied dominance
A desecration of the Deep Feminine
Unable to see and revere
Her wise, feral secrets
Taming to seize control
Inside and out

Strangling the Source
Of life itself

I am looked at. Lusted over.
Reduced to pretty proportions
Not beheld and honoured
In my primal power
The grasping hand
Taking what is only numinous
When given

Can you not see that
This is holy ground?

Wounds beget wounds
And Protectors fortify gates
Preventing invasion
While trapping me in the
Small confines of my safety
Better invisible
Than violated

This I know
Too well

But the call to freedom
To an unabashed announcement
A proud proclamation
Of the winged and wild Magic
That flows in Her blood
Rings loud and moves deep 
Rattling discarded old bones

It’s time to sing Her soul
Back into Life

 

An inner resistance
Surges forward
To name and proclaim
Her sacred sovereignty
Calls me to reckon with
The fucked-up parameters
Of the whole godforsaken story

A call to let the 
Great fires burn

Fires of rage
Flaming with discernment
Radiating light and love
Fires of power
Burning with humility
Glowing with wisdom
Ablaze with clarity of heart

Fires to consume 
The construct of The Construct 

Not only out there
But also, and firstly 
In here
In the exiled establishments
Of my own being
Where this blade
Also lives in me

The uncomfortable truth
Of wholeness

Lest my best attempt 
At healing
Sadly end up fuelling
The Shadow’s veiled intent
A collusion with the split,
The fear-full ‘Othering’
That braces us for battle

Ensuring we all remain
Armoured and afraid

May the women we now call witches
Who burned and drowned
For embodying the Knowing
Feel us turn
Turn to see, turn to stand
Feel the legacy of strength and fear
And find a way to speak

Deep bow to these, my ancestors
To yours too

May my voice be neither meek,
Nor mired in force
But a fierce, unapologetic, 
Undomesticated howl
To serve the re-wilding restoration 
The sacred balance
Of Life Itself

To this end, 
may my life be true.

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Jacqueline has been following a soulful path personally all her life, and has been offering and holding space professionally through transpersonal therapeutic realms, expressive arts and deep-time sacred women’s circles for over a decade.  She is now at a stage in her own spiral of transformation of more deeply embodying the public offering of her own creative expressions through word, image and voice, as a more central embodiment of Soul’s calling.

Jacqueline lives within the Mountains, Tree-Ferns and Rivers of the Yarra Valley in Victoria, Australia, on the lands of the Wurundjeri peoples, to whom she humbly pays her respects.