A reading from The Awakening,
A mythical novella by Claire Salerno.
I recently interviewed Clara Salerno,
Author of The Awakening,
On my podcast,
Evidence of Alignment.
This reading is a taking back of our power and a rising up.
Of healing energies for a new world.
One more in balance with nature and each other.
I suggest you sit back,
Relax and meditate with this offering.
You may also want to light a candle beforehand,
If you can safely do so.
Sit back,
Relax,
And enjoy the reading.
Remember who you are.
Remember what your attention is.
Remember.
You are not powerless.
You are the source of all the power they have taken.
Take it back.
By choosing what to see.
Choose what to feed.
Choose what world to build.
With the sacred fire of your attention.
Close your eyes.
And notice where your gaze rests within.
Feel the warmth of your intention.
Is it shapes the world you wish to see.
This is the old magic.
It was never hidden.
Only forgotten.
This is how the spell breaks.
This is how the binding ends,
With a turning away.
With a turning toward.
With a remembering.
Of what was always true.
The Invocation of the Nine The first movement,
The seeing.
We call on the mirror.
She has been called by many names in many tongues across every age that tried to silence her.
The woman violated by power in the sacred place,
Punished for her own assault.
Made a monster.
Became a protector.
Yet in her reflection there exists not only the power to turn transgressors to stone,
But also a pathway to healing and redemption.
To see truly is to transform.
Inviting both remorse in those who gaze upon themselves and the possibility of renewal.
She reflects,
Not just what is.
But what can be embraced and changed,
Allowing healing to be as powerful as justice.
Turn the gaze back upon the gazers.
Let them see themselves and be turned to stone.
Let the screens become mirrors.
Let the liars look upon their own faces and be unable to look away.
Show them what they are.
We call on the storm.
Mother of nine,
Keeper of the gates between worlds.
She who rides the wind.
She is lightning that tears down what will not bend.
The systems have grown rigid.
They refuse change.
They refuse justice.
They stand like dead trees,
Taking up space where new growth should be.
Yet beneath their shadow.
The seeds of what could be are stirring.
Potential waits patiently,
Ready to burst forth once the ground is cleared.
Promising renewal,
And the birth of something vibrant and new.
Bring the storm.
Clear the ground.
Make way for what comes next.
Sweep the path clean.
We call on the sovereign.
Phantom Queen,
Great Queen.
She who circles the battlefield and chooses who stands.
She who grants the right to rule and takes it back.
The right to rule was never theirs to keep.
They held it by theft,
By lies,
And by the slow poison of forgetting.
Withdraw what was never truly given.
Let the crown turn to ash.
Let the throne collapse beneath them.
Let them reach for power and find only air.
Take back what is yours to take.
Eyes opened.
The ground was swept bare.
Old ties snapped like rotten rope.
The second movement,
The trapping.
We call on the consequence.
Eyes of the sun,
Lady of slaughter,
She who walks in red,
She who rises when the innocent are harmed.
They have harmed the innocent.
They have harmed us.
Children at the border.
The sick denied medicine.
The earth itself is called collateral.
We call for righteous consequences,
Not cruelty,
But consequence.
Not revenge.
But justice.
Remember what they have done.
We call on the Threshold.
Keeper of keys,
Torch-bearer in darkness,
She who stands at every crossroads and decides what passes.
We have reached the threshold.
One path is dark and cold,
The air thick with shadows that whisper of fear and uncertainty.
The other path is lit and warm.
A beam of sunlight breaking through,
Inviting and full of promise.
One path leads deeper into the shadow.
The other leads through to a place of clarity and hope.
Seal the door behind us.
Let what must end,
End.
Let it be sealed.
Let it not follow.
Guard the passage.
Lock what must be locked.
We call on the refusal.
The first woman.
The first no.
She who would not lie beneath.
She who chose exile over submission.
Demonized for her freedom ever since.
They have demanded our submission,
Demanded we be quiet,
Be good,
Be grateful.
Demanded we lie beneath.
We remember the defiant voices of history refusing to be silenced.
And the workers,
Whose footsteps marked the pavement with a collective refusal.
These echoes of insurrection have lingered.
Amplifying the power of our own notes.
Cut the feeding.
Starve what has grown fat on our silence.
Teach us our no.
Justice called out.
The door slammed shut.
The feeding ended.
The third movement.
The dissolution.
We call on the dissent.
Queen of Heaven and Earth.
She who went down through seven gates.
Stripped at each one,
Hung on the hook in the underworld,
Died,
Rose.
From the depths,
She returned with the truth that true strength is born from vulnerability.
And that transformation begins with surrender.
They think destruction is the end.
They do not understand.
We have been dismantled before.
Our mothers and their mothers before them.
We know what they do not.
What is taken apart can be reborn greater.
Teach us to rise from what should have killed us.
We call on the destroyer of illusion.
Dark mother,
She who dances on the corpse of ego.
She who wears time as a garland of skulls.
She who was there before the first word and will remain after the last.
Strip away the false selves the Empire made us wear.
The masks of consumption felt like rough burlap against the skin,
Suffocating with the stench of machinery and decay.
The identities built on fear were shadowed shrouds,
Heavy with the scent of old smoke.
The small selves that believed we were separate held the cold bitterness of isolation.
Destroy what was never real,
So what is real can finally breathe.
Free us from the prison of the false self.
We call on the forge.
Keeper of the Eternal Flame.
Smith of the Sacred Metal.
HEALER poet.
She who transforms what is raw into what is holy.
We have destroyed enough.
Now we must build.
Teach us the craft of creation.
Show us how to shape something new from the wreckage.
Light the forge.
Heat the metal.
Guide our hands as we hammer out a world worth living in.
Bless the work of building.
What was rigid and broken apart,
What was false,
Washed away.
What remains stands steady.
And when the nine had been called,
The women spoke together.
We light our fires.
We speak our incantations.
Our hearts join as one.
There is love and power in this summoning.
We remember who we are.
We remember who you are.
And we are no longer afraid.
Now.
Courage lives in these moments,
In the freedom to speak out.
Each small,
Brave act is a testament to a future shaped by fearless hearts and unyielding voices,
Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.
The nine threads.
The first movement,
The seeing.
The first thread is the mirrors.
With it we bind your power to deceive.
Every lie you speak will be seen.
Every mask will slip.
They will see your true face.
The second thread is the storms.
With it,
We bind your rigidity.
Everything you built to last will crumble.
The wind will tear through your certainties.
Nothing you made will stay the same.
The third thread is the Sovereigns.
With it,
We bind your insatiable hunger for dominion.
Every crown you grasp will turn to dust.
Every throne will break beneath you.
The power you stole will slip from your hands.
Even the land will spit you out.
The first knot is tied,
Eyes open,
The ground is bare,
The false bonds are cut.
The second movement,
The trapping.
The fourth thread is the consequence.
With it,
We bind you to what you have done,
Like the tale of the jealous stepsister who ground her own fate with the millstone of greed.
And the echoes of your actions will find you.
Every harm you give will come back to you.
Justice will find you,
Even in the dark.
The innocent will be avenged.
The fifth thread is the thresholds.
With it,
We bind you from crossing.
Every door will shut in your face.
Every passage will turn you away.
You will not enter the world we are making.
The sixth thread is the refusals.
With it,
We cut what feeds you.
You fed on our attention,
Devouring our outrage and feasting on our fear.
You gorged yourselves on our sleepless nights as we watched your face flicker on the screen.
No more.
Every eye that turns away will weaken you.
Every mind that starves you will make you smaller.
The silence will gnaw at you until you are hollow.
The second knot is tied.
Justice calls.
The threshold is sealed.
The feeding ends.
The third movement,
The dissolution.
The seventh thread is the descents.
With it,
We bind your fear of ending.
You think destruction is the end?
You are wrong.
What is broken can be remade.
Those you tried to destroy will rise.
Your ending is only a door.
Something new will walk through.
The eighth thread is the destroyers.
With it,
We bind your illusions.
Make every false self you created dissolve.
Every swollen ego will collapse.
Only what is real will remain.
The ninth thread is the forges.
With it,
We complete the binding.
You will make nothing new.
The forge spits out your metal.
The flame turns away from your hand.
But those who build with love will be blessed.
Those who shape the world with care will find the fire waiting.
The tools will come into their hands and bind you.
The space where you used to be will be filled.
The third knot is tied.
What was rigid was dismantled.
What was false,
Dissolved.
What remains is ready to be built.
