If Women Rose Rooted: A Journey to Authenticity and Belonging

I do not remember a time when I was a child when I felt as if I were in my element, when I felt at home in my skin. I lost it too soon. It was not stolen: I hid it away, so deeply and so cleverly that it took me decades to remember that I’d ever possessed it.

Mara, she called her, after the sea.

After all, this morning is Samhain,2 the old seasonal Gaelic festival which marks the beginning of winter. And on this night, my ancestors believed, the passage between this world and the Otherworld is open.

Then I would begin to understand exactly what it was that I had abandoned when I abandoned that well at the bottom of the hill – but it was going to be another couple of decades, and a long and winding journey, before I would find it again.

That is why we must look for help along the way. The most valuable allies are those who teach us that we cannot succeed alone – and more, that it is meaningless to succeed alone, for an essential feature of the Heroine’s Journey is uncovering the power of community.

I think a lot of women are doing this now, with more homeschooling, with community projects, with educational projects that operate a little bit outside the norms of our patriarchal education system. This is how we ensure the land has good future caretakers.

heroes is with service to and stewardship of the land.

There is no map for this pilgrimage we are on; there is no fixed path. And that is a good thing, because following the paths that others have set for us, the paths that the system confines us to – that is the cause of the problem.

On any quest, there may be dead ends; sometimes we can set off down the wrong path. When the Selkie’s old skin is discovered, when she understands finally what was lost, she cannot wear it again, because it has disintegrated through misuse. She cannot simply pick up where she left off; she must set off to find a new skin.