Sovereignty. It’s a
word that can mean many different things.
There is the sovereignty of a nation.
There is the concept of sovereignty with Celtic mythology, bestowed by
the goddess of the land and at times stripped away when a leader rules
unjustly. In a modern sense sovereignty can
be claiming your own skin, ruling your life justly, recognizing your own self-worth
and rising up to take control of your life like the King or Queen you truly
are.
My own sovereignty
has come to mind often over the past several months. Not allowing others to take my sovereignty
was part of a vow I made to the Morrigan at the Morrigan’s Call Retreat this
past June. There were other vows made
that night, when we faced Macha’s sword in ritual. And those have weighed upon my mind as well,
but it is both the idea of what sovereignty is and if I have claimed it, that
my mind keeps circling back too. Because
really it’s a process. It’s something I
have claimed in different ways at different times and in different parts of my
life. And looking back I realize it’s
something that is continually claimed, not simply claimed once. Sovereignty is something we continually
become worthy of. And it requires taking
action.
That is perhaps the
hardest part. Taking action. We resist change in our lives. Sometimes being unhappy is safer than taking
a chance. Unhappiness can become
something familiar, and if we do break the negative cycles in our lives, if we
go out on that limb, there are no guarantees anymore. We question ourselves, we think ‘Maybe this
is a good as if gets?’. And so out of
fear we resist change, we let others take our sovereignty from us, we let them
rule our lives instead. Because it
easier. But it also means we never make room for good things to come into our
lives, the things we are truly worthy of.
When I first
encountered the Morrigan I felt broken.
She gave me the strength to leave an abusive situation, and probably
saved my life. It wasn’t easy, but I had
reached a point where I had to take action.
I had to be pushed and reach my breaking point before I did anything to
help myself. I went kicking and screaming, while the Queen
tapped her foot and waited for me to realize nothing was going to change until
I stood up and MADE things change. I had
to accept what was going on was wrong, and if I didn’t leave it was never going
to end. I had to be the one to end
it. And I did.
And afterwards I
struggled. I could barely pay my rent, I worked two jobs
and went to school full time. But I was
happy, really happy, for the first time in my life. I had claimed a little piece of sovereignty. But there was still an emptiness inside
me. It would take a long time for that
to go away, for me to put those broken pieces back together. And at times I find pieces I thought I fixed,
that need to be addresses again. Because
as I said, sovereignty is a process. To
be worthy of putting that crown on our heads, or that torc around our neck
requires that we really dig down and look within, really look at ourselves, and
accept ourselves, both the good and the bad.
And that takes time.
After a while I
began to heal, that broken darkness began to ebb. I brought new and better things into my life. But I faltered in that sovereignty many times. At times I let the wrong people into my life,
I let other people walk all over me. I
gave too much of myself, not really owning that my time and energy had
worth. I let old cycles repeat without
knowing it at first. And again the Queen
challenged me. There were times She
forced me to face my demons, and at other times She became silent. I could feel Her waiting, restless, somewhere
just at the edges of my perception, tapping her foot, probably raising a fierce
looking eyebrow at me, waiting for me to cut the things out of my life that no
longer served me before I reached a breaking point. In my mind I could hear Her
say “You are the daughter of a Queen, act like it.” Because it’s easier to embrace change when we
hit rock bottom, when there is no other option, and we can’t hide behind our
excuses or the things we put in our lives to distract us from owning our
actions and ourselves. The trick is to
learn to be brave and stand up for ourselves, to know we are worthy of good
things in life, without having to be backed into a corner to finally face these
things. And I’ve found I’m good at
making excuses. “I’ll take care of x
after I finally do y” or “When I do x, I’ll
be strong enough to finally face y”.
Sometimes you just have to feel your way through the dark, you have to
stand on the edge of the cliff and jump, not knowing if you are going to fly or
fall. Because if you don’t, nothing will
change in life.
Claiming sovereignty
has been a slow process. It’s taken years. I’ve hit plenty of speed bumps. I’ve had to jump off of a few metaphorical cliffs
and take chances. And I’ve learned along
the way its ok to be broken, sometimes you have to fall apart to rebuild
yourself and your life anew.
At Samhain this year
a friend had suggested that as part of our ritual we should remember not just
the ancestors but who we have been. You
aren’t the same person you were ten years ago, or even a year ago. We change, we evolve, we are constantly in a
state of becoming. And so we did just
that. We honored the ancestors, but then
we spent a moment honoring, remembering and perhaps mourning the people we had
been. The parts of ourselves that were
gone, and recognized that we had changed.
It’s something I plan on incorporating into my private Winter Solstice
ritual tomorrow. I will mourn and
remember the person I was, and recognize that I am someone new. Someone who strives to be worthy of that torc
around my neck. Because although at
times I’ll wear a pentagram, or a little silver raven pendant, it’s always the
torc that I prefer to wear as a symbol of my faith, as a symbol of my devotion
to the Morrigan. The Morrigan is many
things, but She is always the Great Queen.
She doesn’t apologize for who She is, but revels in it, and so should
we.
