I was reminded today from someone who crept back to my life unlooked for and unannounced (and unwanted) the reason I do what I do in the way I do it. Traditionally women have been healers. We have gathered, wildcrafted, grown, harvested and prepared herbs and medicines to make well and comfort the sick. We have been there to birth the babies and hold the hands of the dying and, when the journey is over, to wash and wrap the dead and see them to their beyond. We have advised the sorrowful and troubled in their hour of need and kept women safe when those who swore to love them became the sly enemy. The patriarchy didn’t much like it. Women have been lied about, lied to, lectured and berated. We have had our roles stolen, our place denigrated by a group of people who looked on our power and wisdom with hate and envy. We have been owned, controlled and belittled by the new religious triad, kept in our place and out of the sight of their god lest we offend him. We have been draped, raped, cinched, bound, covered, gagged, stripped, imprisoned, sold and traded against our wills. And when when that didn’t work we were burned. Our grandmothers have been silenced. Our daughters subverted and ourselves turned against each other to please him. We clawed back a little of our power with blood and voice and tears. Some of us awakened to the lie, were dragged back and were shaken awake again. We took control of our bodies, our minds, our sexuality and our education. In the books and forests and caves of shadows we learned to be healers again, hearing the voices of our grandmothers across the celestial borders of time and space. Yet again their fear and loathing and need to control is lashing back. They hate the healers, the angel makers, the apothecarists and the oracles who have the ears of the Creatrix. I was reminded today of how they work, who they are and what they want. They take, they lie, they steal, and they set worlds on fire so they can feel a power they have no right to. Yet, I am strong and the wind of moon and star and celestial wisdom erupted in the night at my call to sweep away the black smoke and glowering gaze from the shadows and repel it back to where it belongs…with it’s brothers of deceit. It has no power over me.