It's the day after the vernal equinox of the new age. Yesterday Sue Davis, her friend Jeliza, Kelly from Wombat, a two-spirit named Dianne from Louisville and myself met at the Serpent Mound to celebrate both the rebirth of the seasons and Sue's own rebirth on the eve of her own journey. Monica Roberts and Sarah Fox were also present as moral/love support although they declined participation in the ritualistic nature of the trip. Sue has chosen to relive as much of the ancient Galla traditions as she can. While I too, am drawn to those ancient mysteries.........it comes to me that our role is the renewal of those traditions in our own right (rite) Our own modern mysteries, our own traditions. In many ways we have founded these modern mysteries and Sue also has honored them. In the true spirit of the season of Halaria*, these modern "mysteries" are rich in humor and light heartedness such as the traditional "wienie roast" preceding one's SRS and a ritualistic burning of one's old male underwear. Others are rarely spoken of to those not also on the journey yet have thier own ribald humor about them.
I had the most incredible sense of birthing at the mound yesterday, both giving birth and being birthed. Shedding our own former lives is in a sense a birthing, the birth-gving that galla experience as part their own motherhood Being birthed is also mixed up in that. We, of all the women of the world, are the ones who can best embody the three aspects of the Goddess at once. Those of us who transition at an older age are in many respects the Crone, yet in the transformation of our bodies through our own actions we also are the Maid. If we are mature enough to reach out to others and can open ourselves to the mystery, we are also Mother, birthing ourselves into our own maidenhood. It is the real nature of the mystery of the Gallae and what we bring to the circle.
The experiences were incredible............my own rebirth, cleansing, shedding, ending and beginning all at once. I felt that in some way I had just given birth to myself. As I traveled first widdershins around the Serpent, I could feel the shedding of baggage I still carried with me....the process continued into the night as I found it necessary to talk to Sarah for several hours on the phone about the shunning I've been subjected to by the so called trans-community in Ohio. A shunning I now understand was necessary for me to continue finding my own path as I have always done throughout my life and especially throughout the shamanistic journey that was/is, has been my transition to.............for wont of better phrasology, Gallawomanhood.
I was also reborn. The Dosil journey around the Serpent found my feet almost dancing as I progressed towards the mouth and the egg. Standing at the arrow beyond the egg I could feel the pouring forth process that was at once my own birthing and the act of my giving birth. It was a very real feeling accompanied by a rushing of the wind and a pushing both on me and from me. As my feet danced on the path towards the mouth of the Serpent, I was very aware that the Serpent was intended as a path itself......that the dance should have progressed on it's back but was able to project my own spirit there and thus fulfill that need. Pausing yet again at the east side of the Serpent's mouth there was a small black rock that called me to charge myself. Just within the reach of the path, I leaned over and charged, first my wand, and then my left hand (one receives her power through the left hand and gives it forth through the right in most magickal traditions......something that also has always felt correct to me.)
The balance of the deosil path around the Serpent was a taste of yet to come.......a sense of my own cronehood as it is and shall be. A peaceful filling of the balance of my journey. A sense of "rightness" to my choices.
Later that night, upon returning to my home, Sue and Jeliza and myself performed one last ritual. Sue burned her "jockstrap" that she used for her martial arts classes. It was simple and proper. It was the first ritual act in the newly made circle in my back yard. I had myself burned a pile of my old male underwear back on the eve of my own transition to "full time/RLT", phrasing that still rings wrongly to my ears ..........more accurately for myself would be real-life-living, the shedding of the role imposed on me by the world for my sin of being born different. As I watched both the fire and Sue's face.......I could feel a peace settling within her and a renewed sense of the peace my own burning had given me. In many ways that simple act was the culmination of Sue's transition whether she realizes it or not. Her surgery is just the making physical that which has now taken place on the spirit level
I am overjoyed to have been able to experience all this with Sue.
Blessed Be,
Cathy Platine
*Halaria on March 25 is the joyful feast of Attis who was reborn as the daughter of the Cybele, Divine Mother. The eve of Halaria was the traditional day of self emasculation of the Gallae, the transsexual priestesses of the Great Mother. Sue has arranged her own SRS on this day. March 24'th.
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