For You I Hold the Bowl

I hold the bowl for you, my Love. Find your strength within my strength.

I am, so often, the one who holds the bowl for those I love. Even more often, I find myself emptying all that I have for my loves as well. In those moments, it is Sigyn that I see, out of the corner of my witchy eye, staring with stern love and compassion:

Sigyn, wife of Loki, Who stood beside Him, holding a bowl over His head, hour after hour, to keep the snake’s venom from dripping on His head, sparing Him excruciating pain, all the while exhausted and in Her own grief and pain. When Her bowl was full, She would empty it as quickly as She could, while Her husband wailed in pain, but then She returned to Him, bowl held high in protection and devotion. Her sacrifice was genuine; Her wisdom so much more than mine.

Not so long ago, a witch whom I love dearly reminded me that I cannot continue to pour from an empty cup. I was exhausted, disconnected, burnt out and suffering from pain in my feminine core that no words can even describe. The more I gave to those I love, to my work, my writing, to the world, the more I scraped from my center–that feminine power source–and made it raw and angry. I did not ignore those words: I tried to adjust; to say when I needed respite. I took the time for my practice, my energy work, my meditation. I took time to cuddle on the couch with my scruffy witch cat, letting him pet me as I stroked him. There were books long set aside I took the time to read. Yet still I was not refilling my cup as I should. Still, I stood with a bowl raised above my head, caring for everyone but myself with the love magick my practice guides me to give.

Sigyn, Mother of Magick stood quietly by and watched, waiting patiently for me to get my magickal act together. I would glance over to my Tibetan singing bowl and She would be firmly in my mind, never poking at me or chastising me in the way my beloved Freyja is want to do. She did not give me the firm rebukes and loving, enfolding embrace that I get from Heimdall, or the empathetic and emboldened shoring up of my Will that Tyr is always there to give. She just stood quietly and patiently, the embodiment of feminine power, and waited for me to actually ask Her: “What am I to do, Mother?”

And in a moment only days ago, I asked, and She answered:

“Hold the bowl with love my child, but take the time to pour out the poison and have those you would protect and love feel pain; care for themselves for just a moment in time. For if you empty the poison from the bowl, there is room for your magick to fill it up. The poison displaces the magick a bit at a time, but that magick is still there. Rest, feed yourself, and draw into that core of power the love you give to others. Let their gratitude in. But more than anything else, accept the love they return. If they do not return love, gratitude, that frith you deserve, stop holding the bowl for them, my child. Like our Tyr, your hand is a damaged one, and like our Tyr, you never let that be your weakness. Your weakness is your desire to give so much in order to receive so little.”

Nothing like having a Mother of Magick give you a loving call down! I cannot be a kitchen witch, infusing everything that I bake or cook with power, if I starve myself. Sigyn is so much more than just the wife of Loki, the Mother of doomed twins; the dutiful mate that holds the bowl. She, as a Mother, is a Creator of Magick from the feminine core. Now, hold your rebukes and complaints because by Her request I am going to go there: we all have a feminine core, no matter our birth gender or our soul gender; we all have a feminine and masculine in us: the key is to balance them. The giving of active nurturing comes, per the wise words of Sigyn whispered to these often figuratively deaf ears, from the feminine core. She, and Her Sisters in Magick (Angrbodha, Freyja, and Hel) are there to hold the bowl for us now and then; to remind us that self-love is as important as selfless love.

Take a moment to lift whatever bowl, cup, liquid containing vessel (if it is full of hot coffee or tea, drink that first) cupped in both hands. Fill it with your energy, close your eyes, and pull from your core, infusing the vessel with love. Breathe in and out gently and evenly on counts of four. Lift that vessel over your head (or as much over your head as you can) and hold it steady there. Keep going; hold for at least five minutes, if you can. (We do not want anyone to drop a bowl on their head!) Are your arms tired, do you feel full or empty? Think on this. Before that conversation with Sigyn, my arms, especially the one that is damaged, would be in agony and I would resent that physically empty bowl. Now, I can hold that bowl, fill it from my core, and feel that wash down over me, refilling me. Now I can hold that bowl for another; I can protect, provide, love.

My Beloved, I will hold the bowl for you. I will be sorrowful to rest and refill, if that gives you pain; I will strive to pour all that poisons away from you.