THE CALL From her Strange Angels

Answering The Call is to turn to a new path; to begin moving another direction, usually into darkening forests whose trails are narrow and obscured. Contained within The Call is the imperative to walk away from what is currently before you- the leave-taking of a previous path- to wander, seemingly aimlessly at times, a wooded night.

There may be others on that current pathway with you. They stare as you move away. Some are stunned, or angry. Some shake their head in disappointment or fear for the loss of your presence and agreement. As you move away from the company of Those Who Think Like Me, you begin to realize that you haven't thought like them for some time now. The thought of continuing on as you have for so long is causing such a rift that it threatens to divide you from your very essence. If you don't finally answer this time, The Call may never come to you again. You can't risk that possibility.

So you begin to trudge through poison oak, nettles and briar patches, scratched and scraped, tired and thirsty. There is no room at the inn- you are called to the Wild Woods, and there you will remain, because you know that only in those wild places will you finally come upon what you have always searched for.

To answer The Call is to change your name, releasing the syllables and sounds of your former self to adopt your rightful title. You are no longer Compliance, Prudence, Chastity. You stop trying to write beautifully, and begin writing what is true. Your identity is finally stripped down to only what is real for you- your new name, your oldest name that is- Wildish, Untamed, Powerful, and your handwriting is scrawling, fast and recognizable only to those who write the same way. The Call demands this of you.

The Call is a growing pain that begins at the center and radiates outward to singe and burn away everything it touches that cannot last. This is the very nature of change and metamorphosis. For the shedding of skin into a new being is intrinsically painful. I have stopped trying to avoid pain. But pain is only part of the story. What remains is strong, resilient, and worthy. Everything else is a skin fit for then, and we can find the courage to let it go in favor of now.

Along the way, you will meet up with sisters who have answered their own calls. After years of trudging alone to the single note of our own call, we begin to sense first, then to see their dirt-smudged, tear-streaked faces. Their scars look comfortingly similar to our own. We are a ragtag tribe of outcasts, moon howling, spiritual homesteaders. The notes of our own call begin to merge and blend, and we become a symphony of stragglers, circling in sacred ritual- we are never truly alone. Our wounds are treasure maps tracing our stories back to the moment we said no, enough, no more, now, this time, my time. They bind us, these wounds, these calls, one to another on this dark wooded path.

To answer The Call is to choose a life outside what anyone else deems worthy, understandable, logical. We are heralded by some as over-emotional, ridiculous, dramatic, eccentric, strange, weird, unnatural. Others like us will recognize themselves in our journey, our words, our artwork, our altars, our homegrown vegetables and homespun clothes. They will feel they are home when they smell lavender at our neck and see sage on our tables.

Our legacy is red, and burns with a passion we cannot contain so that it seeps out and stains our daughters and sons, marking them for a new way of life that emerges- because we were brave enough to answer a Call.