How Invoking My Medicine Woman Healed My Paralysed Face
“It may be the first day of your life, the prime of youth or several decades in, when Medicine Woman calls you. Your name on her list. Her new initiate. She crept in whilst you were sleeping, when you over-exerted, when you kissed him, or ate that, or lived there or pushed too hard just one time too many. She crept in and curled up in your cells, your heart, waiting to meet you. Longing to know you. Longing for you to know her, at last.
And what feels like the end is in fact a beginning, of a new road, an unknown path of pain and healing. She will show you how to slow down, she will run her fingers roughly through your life and help you sort the busyness from what matters, she will show you how to find support… and who you really are, beyond your roles and expectations… and even more beyond the System the world has forced you into. She transports you into the timelessness of big pains and tiny joys. Initiates you into your strength. Into your love. Into your courage. Into a world beyond your control.
She has sent me an invitation. I see yours too, tucked in your bag, amongst all the receipts and bills, the pens and detritus of life. Take it out.
It is time.”
~ Lucy Pearce
Back when I had Chronic Fatigue, when I was age 10, I had no idea I was being initiated into magic. I had little idea of any of what was going on, really - I was too young, though I do remember the various holistic healing techniques we explored, and the haunting call of the Doctors "there nothing you can do to heal from this yuppy flu."
Powerlessness.
I healed. When I was 23, though, I remember the real disconnection from my body as I continue to push hard. The feeling numb, the pushing hard, doing what everyone expected of me. The ignoring of my emotions and my somewhat pushed down desires, which I really wasn't aware of - only maybe the dull ache of something different. For freedom, perhaps.
And I remember the shame. The shame of having Chronic Fatigue again, of losing my career, the shame of my body not keeping up with life. The guilt of needing to be looked after. The fear of my body's weakness and of not healing again. The punishment I gave it for not being enough. Powerlessness. And a lack of magic in my life.
I didn't realise I was being called by my Medicine Woman. "My name on her list," as Lucy Pearce says.
I didn't realise that this seeming end was actually the beginning of a new me - the *real* me - and that it would unfold a whole unknown path of healing that would lead me to my magic and power. That would eventually lead me to not only healing myself, but finding my gifts - my Medicine for the world.
When I walked the 3P path, I thought I was free from healing. And then I gave birth, fully in fear - fully *ignoring* my fear. And I realised it was time. My face, paralysed from Bells Palsy, unable to even blink, I realised, Medicine Woman had called to me again. I'd not honoured her; I'd, once again, not valued the magic and importance of my body. I'd suppressed myself, yet again. And once more I was told I'd not heal from this, I'd be left with a paralysed face.
And so, I began my descent into the darkness. Into the fear, into the shame, making all that was unconscious, conscious. Following the next breadcrumb. The journey to Soul. The journey to realising that my Secret Witch (who didn't think she had the power) had the power all along; she'd just been harnessing it the wrong way - against herself - as a way of staying safe.
And slowly, I began to heal. Not only my face, but all the ways I'd created this by not embodying my Medicine Woman aspect of the Witch. I'd not listened to my wisdom, my intuition, the deeply healing alchemist, hidden within me. I learned to alchemise my wounds into gold, invoke the wild medicine of my Witchy ancestors, to harness my medicinal power, and to discover the deeper layers of myself I'd kept shamed. I began to deeper into the wild feminine force of love within me. And in doing so, I found my gifts and purpose.
We are powerful, intuitive, magical healers. And we can harness that power to create all of life magically. By invoking Medicine Woman I began to become the full embodiment and expression of my Soul.
The same is available for you too. And this January I'm leading something very special - Invoke Your Medicine Woman. Birthed magically, under the light of the Full Moon, this crucible means so much to me. I'll be guiding 8 magical women into their Medicine Woman.
Much love
Nicole x
