Old Bone Mother

 

image: Carolyn Hillyer

 "Old Bone Mother is an archetype, a potential; we find her in the old folktales. In the person of Baba Yaga, with her forest hut which runs on chicken legs, and is surrounded by a wooden fence topped with skulls. In the Siberian story of the dead hero who is taken to an old woman in a cave; she sleeps on his bones, and so brings him back to life. In the Mexican story of La Huesera, who takes bones back to her cave and sings them back to life.

Bones are the essence of us, and they always speak the truth. The childish bones buried beneath The Juniper Tree; The Singing Bone with its story of murder and treachery. You can’t fool the bones, and you can’t fool Old Bone Mother. She’ll lead you to the cave; she’ll sleep on your bones; she’ll show you the way to tend your wounds, how to grope your way gently back to wholeness. Old Bone Mother knows all the tricks of the healing dark. But Old Bone Mother knows we sometimes need a little tougher love. She knows when it’s time to let you go, when it’s time to kick you back out again. Back into the world, back on the path, on out into the promise of returning light.

We need to focus on coming back to our bodies, beginning to repossess our instincts, beginning to reclaim our deep connection to the land and its non-human inhabitants. This is how we heal." ~ Sharon Blackie

untethering.....